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Piracy Falls, But Not All Musicians Are Happy

By

Nick Clayton

Sep 30, 2011 8:15 am GMT

Sweden, the country that gave birth to the torrent-links website Pirate Bay and its offspring, the Pirate Party, now brings news of a rapid move away from illegal downloads in favor of music streaming services such as Spotify. Perhaps by coincidence, Spotify also started life in Sweden.

Copyright and download blog TorrentFreak says that the latest quarterly report from Media Vision (in Swedish) prepared for the industry association Musiksverige (Music Sweden) shows a 25% fall in piracy in the country since 2009.

Streaming services such as Spotify are now the most popular way to consume music. More than 40 percent of the participants in the survey now use a music streaming service, compared to less than 10 percent who say they download music legally. About 23 percent continue to pirate music, but this number is dwindling.